For SCIENCE
by Omega Overlord
Summary: Serenity has always had a problem with ghosts in her inn, and it is only a matter of time until the local hero's get sick of clearing them out. Lim has always had a problem with skimping on sleep. Perhaps they can help each other. Lim/Serenity


Disclaimer: I do not own any characters of Artix Entertainment portrayed within.

Falconreach: Guardian Tower exterior

Jake, Death Knight and hero of Lore, fingered the edge of his DOOM axe and waited for his wife, Louise, to come out of the portal. Louise had saved up quite a bit of gold, and had invested it for something, what exactly she had not told him. The only hint she had given him was, "Even Warlic would be impressed." The only thing he could think of that would impress Warlic was Jaina suddenly, and for no apparent reason, busting out of the crystal that Warlic and Xan had stuck her in by accident. Other than that, some kind of magic maybe? That might make a bit of sense, but unless Louise had been doing quite a bit of practicing when he wasn't looking, of which there was little, she didn't know all that much about magic.

He muttered to himself, "I can't think of a kind of magic that Louise could do that Warlic couldn't though, unless it's of the female kind."

He chuckled at the small joke and turned to look out over the town. Things had settled down a bit after he booted Sepulchure off the top of his own castle, again. In Falconreach the only mildly dangerous thing that had happened was Lim turning his black hole machine again, and being forced to deal with the resulting flood of darkness and energy elementals. Speaking of Lim, the red-haired scientist was slowly meandering his way up the hill. Well, perhaps staggering would be a better word. Either Lim was drunk, of which there wasn't much possibility, or he was dead tired, which was a very distinct possibility. Taking the initiative, he took three steps forward and caught Lim by the back of the shirt when the scientist tripped over a rock.

He pulled Lim upright and slipped the goggles up to reveal the huge bags under Lim's eyes, "How many days have you gone without sleeping?"

Lim mumbled something that was a bit too low to hear.

He put his hand up to his ear, "What was that?" And stomped on Lim's foot.

Lim jumped about a foot in the air and shrieked, "AH! Why did you do that?"

Underneath his helmet, he smirked, "To give you a little kick start. Kind of hard to talk to you when you are a dead man walking, in a figurative sense of course."

Lim just stared at him for a second, "Ah, you ARE Jake right?"

He sighed, "It's the helm, isn't it? The helm of the High Dark Emperor, some old guy that was an evil despot. I don't care about the title that goes with it, I just like the look. Suits me though, don't you think?"

Lim shivered, "I guess, but it makes your eyes glow an evil purple color."

He shrugged, "You think it looks evil, Louise thought it looked pretty. I hope you won't be offended if I go with her opinion over your's."

Lim shook his head, "Not at all." Then looked around through tired eyes, "Where is she, by the way?"

He shrugged again, "She went through the portal a little while ago, said she had some kind of surprise that she wanted to show me. Something to do with magic I expect, so you wouldn't be all that interested."

Lim's eyes started to droop again, "Oh, no that's..." The scientist's eyes fell shut and he started snoring while standing.

He shook his head and stomped on Lim's other foot in an attempt to wake him up. To his surprise, it didn't work. Lim just kept snoring like nothing at all had happened.

He muttered to himself, "Wow, this is worse than usual."

While he was busy contemplating what to do, a pair of metal gauntlets covered his eyes whil a voice a clear as bells crooned in his ear, "Guess who."

Instead of guessing, or speaking at all, he turned around and gave his wife a quick peck on the cheek. Then he took a second look, Louise's eyes were glowing blue. He took a step back so he could get the whole picture.

He spoke, and he was rather confused, "Ah, what the heck is that? You're floating."

Louise started to look alarmed, "You don't like it?"

He shook his head, "I'm not quite sure what to make of it, explain it a little bit if you would."

Louise bit her lip, "Um, maybe it would be better to show you."

As if responding to her will, gears visible through glowing blue sections of the armor started to spin. Within moments, a translucent clock face appeared in the air behind Louise.

He realized what was going on and dove to the side with a shout to avoid a blast of concentrated chrono energy.

He rolled to his feet, "Ok, I get it! You can turn it off now."

Louise looked pleased, "You do? And?"

He cleared his throat and started to speak in a very melodramatic way, "I, am now the proud husband of a mighty Chronomancer! Our enemies will tremble in fear the instant we appear, only to watch helplessly while they are cut in two!" He dropped the act and smirked, "Plus, now you're ageless, just like me."

Louise seemed to think for a moment, "Well, technically you're undead."

He laughed quietly for a moment, "I suppose I am at that, but don't mention that around Artix. The overzealous holy paladin might just try and exorcize me, and we both know how that would end, with him unconscious on the ground, and with my axe buried in the dirt next to his head."

Louise smiled at the joke, then looked past him and noticed Lim, asleep on his feet, for the first time, "What's wrong with him?"

He sighed and shook his head, "I think Lim has been overdoing it on the experiments again. The poor guy probably hasn't stopped to sleep in a whole week."

Louise got a concerned look on her face and floated over to the scientist to get a closer look, "What do you think we should do?"

He walked over and gave the sleeping Lim a nudge, which was ignored completely, "What he needs is sleep, but I don't think he even has a bed in that workshop of his." He paused t think for a second, "My opinion, drop him off at the inn and ask Serenity to look after him till he comes around, then MAKE him catch up on his rest." He smirked, "Then you and I can go challenge the Lymcrest Labyrinth to celebrate your new skillz."

Louise gave him an incredulous look, "But, you and I have already made it all the way through."

He took his wife's hand, "I heard that they dug deeper, and found some giant, fiery monster of doom. Now none dare venture down to the depths for fear that they might happen across this evil creature."

Louise started to look interested, "Really? Did they name it yet?"

He started to lead the way, "I think something like the Gorlab of something or other. It's not really that important. I only know that when we find it I have this strange notion that I have to shout, "You shall not pass!" Funny, right?"

Louise stopped, "Wait, what about Lim?"

He tapped himself on the forehead, "Right, almost went off without dealing with him. What would I ever do without you, Louise?"

Several hours later: Serenity's Inn:

Serenity, sighed to herself and started polishing the same glass for the umpteenth time. It was the middle of the day, and that meant the heros were out doing their jobs. It wouldn't be until later in the evening that people started trickling in. When that time came she would be busy, until then it was just her, and Lim. Jake had dropped the scientist off about an hour ago and asked her to look after him. Being the kind person that she was, she readily agreed. It was quite easy to do really, all Lim had done so far was snore on the counter. Poor thing must have not slept for days.

She flipped the glass in her hands once and looked down at it, "Maybe when he wakes up I'll try and get him upstairs into a bed, that will probably be a bit better for him than..."

At the word "bed," Lim started to twitch and stir, "Uhhh..." Lim started to speak, "Where..." Then snapped up, "My chemicals!"

Lim sprang from his chair like he had been hit by a thunderbolt, and started to race for the door.

She bodily stepped in front of the door and started to use her strictest, most motherly tone, "Lim, no. The chemicals can wait."

Lim started to protest, "But..."

She frowned, "Lim, no buts. You need sleep."

Lim continued, "But, seriously, these chemicals are dangerous! I left them on the burners hours ago, they'll explode if left there too long!"

This blatant danger gave her pause, and after a moment of deliberation she relented, "Alright..."

Lim broke in, "Thank you!"

When Lim tried to rush past she stopped him with a hand on his chest, "But, I'm coming with you to make sure that is the only thing you do. After you deal with the chemicals it's straight back here."

Lim submitted, "Yes ma'am."

She suddenly felt rather flustered, as she opened the door, "Please don't call me ma'am. I am still quite young."

Lim lead the way while responding, "I'm sorry, but you did sound like an overbearing mother."

She muttered to herself, "It's just a habit from dealing with rowdy people in the inn. I'm not even out of my twenties yet."

Lim led her across the square to his shop. Even from outside she could hear electricity crackling and large gears turning. Knowing the past experiments that Lim had done, she was justifiably nervous about actually going inside.

Lim started fumbling with the keys, "Ugh, maybe I do need to sleep more."

She waited for a few seconds before offering, "Um, do you want some help?"

Lim rubbed at his eyes through the goggles, then handed over the keys, "Yes, thank you."

She took the keys and unlocked the door, "You just need to take the chemicals off of the burners, right?"

Lim started to ramble, "To start, then I need to get them into the cryo unit to stabilize anything that is remotely volatile. Then I need to double check the power supply to ensure that..."

She broke in, "Wait, how many steps to this process are there?"

Lim paused to answer, "Ah, I don't know. I suppose that I could skip the double checks on the power supply and the HAD-RON collider..."

She broke in again, "Lim, we are here to just deal with the exploding chemicals."

The scientist nodded, "I know that, the HAD-RON collider is irrevocably meshed in with the power supply. I can't do anything to one without tinkering with the other."

She felt her spirit start to fall, "You, you're actually being serious."

Lim smiled, "Of course not! I never kid when it comes to..." Lim paused for effect, and it seemed to lend him a strange fervor, "...SCIENCE!"

She felt her mouth fall open in astonishment, "I..." She gave up and sat down on the only chair in sight, "You promise that you are only going to fix the chemical problem?"

Lim hesitated, "If you really need me to..."

She finished the thought, "I do."

Lim shot her a thumbs up, "I understand, I'll be done in a flash!"

An hour later:

Serenity felt fatigue pulling at her eyes. Watching Lim dart around the workshop with fanatical energy was strangely hypnotic. How could he wring that much energy out of his body after only an hour of sleep? She would be falling over herself left and right until she simply couldn't move, and she sure wouldn't be able to do any of the fine motor control that Lim was managing.

Lim darted over to her from a large machine that resembled one of the huge drums she had in the basement of her inn for storing cider, "Ok, I'm done now. We can go back now if you really..." Lim then dropped off right where he stood, snoring and everything.

She sighed to herself, "Now I have to help him back to the inn." When she looped Lim's arm over her shoulder she grumbled, "I'm going to need a nap myself just from watching him, but I won't have that kind of time because people are going to start coming soon."

Serenity's Inn: Four hours later

Louise nursed her small glass of cider and smiled while she listened passively to Jake relate their recent excursion in the Lymcrest Labyrinth. Especially in regard to the giant, flaming monster. Just another notch in both hers and her husband's adventuring belt.

Jake was using his best storytelling voice, one that was very dramatic, "...And the thing chased us until we got to this skinny little bridge. I got sick of running and rounded on the beast. I roared "you shall not pass" and tackled the thing off the bridge."

She smiled and finished the story, "And then I had to spend an hour fishing around to draw you out of the abyss."

Jake had removed his helmet, but his eyes retained the purple hue, "What can I say? I know I can depend on you to help me out of a jam if I get stuck. Besides, the fall wouldn't have killed me. I would have had the corpse of the monster to cushion my fall, and my new set of wings."

Upon mentioning them, Jake flexed the black, flaming wings upon his back. He had tore them off of the monster while falling. The crowd slowly dispersed to the corners of the inn and Jake turned back to her at the counter.

He set his right hand upon his helmet, "So, how do you think I did? I don't think I embellished too much."

She opened her mouth to reply, but never had the chance to. A bloodcurdling scream tore through the common room, and Lim flew down the stairs like he was being chased by an army of sneevils.

Behind the counter, Serenity let out a long, exasperated sigh, "The ghosts again."

Across the room, a paladin called out, "How long were they gone this time?"

Another paladin answered, "I think about two weeks."

Serenity dropped to the counter and let out a muffled scream of frustration, then picked her head up, "Would anyone feel like clearing them out this time?"

The response was complete silence, because most of them felt the futility of it. Between her and Jake alone they had cleared out the ghosts a hundred times at a bare minimum. Every time the ghosts were cleared out, within a week or so they would be back in force. The current record for them being gone, was about two and a half weeks.

Serenity gave them all a despairing look, "No one?"

Another long pause, then the silence was broken by an unexpected voice, "I'll do it!"

The crowd parted around the speaker, Lim. Then the majority of the crowd started laughing.

The same paladin as before, that she now recognized as Rika, shot the snide remark, "You have got to be kidding. You aren't a hero."

Despite the obvious fatigue that Lim was showing, his fanatical attitude made it appear as if he had just awoken from a eight hour nap, "I will drive them out, with SCIENCE!"

Rika responded sarcastically, "Well, good luck with that."

The patrons went back to their drinks and conversation. Serenity, standing stock still, seemed horror-struck. Although, objectively speaking, this day had to come sooner or later. There were only so many rookie heros that could stomach driving the ghosts off all the time. After a while, she had started to feel like a maid, and that didn't sit well with any woman, well, most women. That was where the term, "little French maid" came from, and, the thought brought a warm feeling to her face, Jake did affectionately call her his little French maid.

Lim strode by with a purposeful gait, right by where she and Jake sat, without a word spoken.

Jake watched the scientist go, "Hmm..." Then turned to her, "I think I'm going to give Lim a bit of a hand with this one." He stood, "I'll be back inside the hour."

Lim's Workshop: 45minutes later

Lim twisted a few wires together and started to construct the device he had come up with to deal with the ghosts. Upon hearing that no one else had been able to get rid of the ghosts, or the supernatural apparitions, he felt galvanized to solve the problem. There were other reasons, like the fact that they had absolutely terrified him and he felt obligated to pay them back in kind. The last one was that he felt he owed it to Serenity, she had gone out of her way to help him, more so than most people had. Admittedly he should probably being doing what she said, getting a good deal more sleep, he just got so caught up in his work that he lost track of time.

The door crashed open behind him, accompanied by a familiar voice, "Hello Lim, need a hand?"

He turned around, Jake was standing in the door with his axe resting on his right shoulder, and a loosely wrapped black bundle tucked under his left arm. He felt, uneasy, just looking at the curious package.

His hands kept working while he talked, "I suppose, you could get to work on cobbling the housing..."

Jake cut him off, "Not the kind of help I was offering Lim." The package spun forward and the bottom end hit the floor with a foreboding sound of finality, like a slab of lead being dropped granite, "I was just offering you a tool that could come in handy."

With a small amount of showmanship, Jake spun the black wrapping off of the object, what was inside was an even deeper black. A black so black that looking at it made feel as if you were falling away into a complete void. Just looking at it also made him want to cower against the back wall, as far away from it as he could get.

His fear must have shown, because Jake nodded sympathetically, "I get that a lot, that's why I was eventually forced to stash this particular trophy in my basement. I used to have it proudly displayed in the foyer, but then everyone that walked in the door suddenly found it in their minds that they had somewhere else to be." Even through the helmet he could tell that Jake was smirking, "And before you ask, yes, that is indeed Death's scythe."

He felt his horror multiply, "You stole that from DEATH?"

Jake shrugged nonchalantly, "Yeah, so what?"

He repeated himself as if the answer was obvious, which it was, "DEATH!"

Jake laughed, "Your point? I'm undead, what do I care? I also happened to steal both his hood and cloak upon a subsequent butt kicking. You weren't around when I was wearing those."

He shivered at the thought of how angry Death must still be, and slowly cast his gaze back and forth between the Death Knight, and Death's scythe, which was now standing of it's own accord right where Jake had put it.

Jake nodded, "Well, obviously you can feel how afraid it makes you. My thought was that you could maybe turn that against the ghosts." Jake started to walk out leaving the scythe where it was, he then paused at the door, "I expect to get it back in one piece, got it?"

He nodded vigorously, "Of course."

Serenity's Inn: Two hours later

Serenity sat at one of the tables in her inn, attempting to drown her sorrows. She knew that she would never be able to sleep in her own bed, or in any of the other rooms for that matter. From past experience and the accounts of other ghost victims, the ghosts would wait until she was almost asleep, then would strike and scare her bad enough that she wouldn't be able to settle down for hours. She didn't keep many brands of liquor in the inn, but Galanoth had always requested a particular brew that came from Swordhaven. As such, she always had a keg or two on hand. It was out of one of these kegs that she was currently drinking, on her third mug.

She sighed and slumped forward on to the table, "It's not like I don't understand why no one wants to help, I just can't do it myself."

There was a loud knock on the door. It was far after hours, so she had no real idea who it could be.

She called out, voice hoarse from the ale, "It's open."

The door swung open, and Lim started to drag in a tall machine that seemed focused around a small, electric blue orb flecked with black. Just looking at it made her feel very uneasy.

She stared for a moment, then spoke, "What is that?"

Lim pumped his fist in the air, "This is SCIENCE!" Then calmed down, "This is also the way I'm getting rid of the ghosts."

Lim crouched down, and flipped a small switch on the side of the machine. A small pulsating sound began, then nothing.

A moment passed, she spoke, "That's it?"

About five seconds after she stopped talking, a ghost flew down the stairs.

She sighed in dismay and looked down at the quarter-full mug in her hand, "Well, thanks for trying."

Lim frowned, "Hmm, maybe if I..." The scientist trailed off and started fiddling with the machine.

She inhaled the last of her mug, "Lim, it's fine. Thank you for..."

In the middle of her sentence every single ghost in the entire building started piling down the stairs. It was technically possible for ghosts to do that, what with them being intangible and all, but it was still a sight, one which she very much wanted to get out of the way of. Following her first instinct, she stood up and started to run, coincidentally straight at Lim. When she looked, she was about three feet away. When she tripped over the leg of a table she had upset while running, two feet. That number quickly closed to zero as she flew through the air and collided with Lim. When they both hit the floor she just covered her head and waited until the swarm of supernatural entities passed by and things quieted down. When they did, she became aware of just how she had hit Lim.

She used the strictest tone she could muster, "Lim, where are your hands right now?"

Lim swallowed, loudly, before answering, "Somewhere they currently have no right to be."

She whispered in Lim's ear, "Then remove them, now."

Lim obliged and gave her a very apologetic look. Once she was up, she made a beeline for the upstairs. Hoping against the odds that all of the ghosts were gone.

Lim knelt down next to his contraption and examined the black-flecked electrical ball in the center. He had deduced that the only reason that only one ghost had fled when he first powered it on, was because a screw had come loose while he had been dragging it from his workshop to the inn. He had been able to duplicate the effect of Death's scythe, after a fashion, by taking shavings from the blade of the scythe and running a powerful magnetic current through them. Based on his calculations, if he kept the device here, and powered up, the ghosts should never...

A squeal of joy broke into his thoughts, and Serenity tore down the stairs to him, "They're all gone. I, I could kiss you right now!" Serenity then proceeded to do just that.

He was dumbstruck, "Ah, well, you're welcome?"

Serenity seemed to realize what she was doing and broke away, her face was about as red as his was, perhaps redder, "I uh, thank you."

Falconreach: Serenity's inn: one month later

Jake shook his head for the umpteenth time, amazed at the fact that Lim had done what no hero in Lore could ever have, permanently driven the ghosts from the inn. Of course, if he wanted to get technical, he had a hand in the whole affair. What with donating the materials and the means to actually pull it off. On that topic, he had been pretty pissed off when he got the scythe back only to find that Lim had taken shavings from the blade to power his machine. But after a while the scythe grew back what it had lost and regained the ethereal cutting edge. So all in all things worked out well.

Especially for Lim, the scientist was actually the whole reason that he and Louise were here tonight. And as the unofficial head of the heros of Lore, he was the one that had to do the honors.

He dragged Lim up as he stood, "Ok, you all know that I'm not the kind for speeches, so let's get this over with." He turned to Lim, "In recognition of your heroics in purging the Inn of the ghosts, we are proud to call you an honorary hero of Lore. Keep up the good work, and try not to blow us all up while doing it."

He gave Lim a shove to get him off into the crowd, then dropped back down into his seat with a sigh, "Lim is a pretty lucky guy, no question."

Louise gave him a look, "Why do you say that?"

He gestured at a certain blond innkeeper that was fussing over a certain mad scientist, "Besides the fact that he hasn't blasted himself to pieces with all of his crazy experiments, Serenity is practically forcing him to spend the every night at the inn. She cares about him, and I think Lim is starting to get that."

Louise suddenly got a very excited look on her face, "Ooh! I just had a great idea!" She whispered said idea into his ear, "What do you think?"

He smirked, "I think it sounds delightfully wicked. I say we do it."

Louise snapped her fingers and the entire room froze. Drinks were stopped half-way to mouths, couples were frozen in amusing positions. Zhoom and Lillith in particular, Lillith appeared to be intoxicated and was draped over Zhoom like a trophy.

Before the spell wore off, Louise and him moved the people around like pieces on a chess board. He grabbed Lim, picked the scientist up, and set him in the middle of a cleared space. Along with Serenity, whom had been placed in the same spot by Louise. He then took a flower from one of the tables, and stuck it between Lim's teeth.

Louise pulled on his arm, "Come on, before the spell wears off!"

He quickly took the exact seat he had been in, as did Louise.

He nodded to his wife, "Do it."

A happy smile crossed Louise's face while she snapped her fingers and let time flow again. The ensuing uproar was more funny than chaotic, especially when Lim and Serenity just went with it and started doing a tango right in the center of everything.

He slowly turned to his wife and smirked, "Looks like you are just as much of a helpless matchmaker as I am."

Louise didn't take her eyes off of Serenity and Lim, "Shhh, I'm waiting until she kisses him."

He continued to smirk and put his eyes back on Lim and Serenity. Maybe the next time he tutored the next aspiring hero to seek him out he could give them an additional rule, "heroics get you attention, from your peers, and especially of the opposite sex."

Quest Complete: The ghosts are gone and Lim is settling in with Serenity, Big Daddy would be proud.


End file.
